O'Koren, Vetrone to fill out Rutgers' staff

O’Koren, who starred at Hudson Catholic and became an All-American forward at North Carolina before playing nine seasons in the NBA, is a longtime associate of Jordan’s from the NBA ranks. He coached alongside Jordan with the Nets, Wizards and 76ers over a 10-year period. With the Sixers he was associate head coach under Jordan during the 2009-10 season.

Vetrone has college head coaching experience but struggled at Fairleigh Dickinson’s helm from 2009-13, posting a 26-95 mark over four seasons. As an assistant prior to FDU, the New York native was known as a strong recruiter, although his tenure at UNLV was marred by secondary violations surrounding the recruitment of Lamar Odom.

O’Koren and Vetrone will join holdover Van Macon to round out Jordan’s three-person assistant staff. They replace David Cox, who was fired in March and has since been hired by Dan Hurley at Rhode Island, and Kyle Triggs, whose contract was not renewed.

Sources said Jordan had previously targeted former Wake Forest assistant Jeff Battle as a potential assistant. Battle, who was involved in the recruitment and development of Chris Paul, spent 13 years at Wake after coming over from Xavier with Skip Prosser.

Staff Writer:
Jerry Carino has been a Gannett New Jersey sports writer and columnist since 1996. He hails from Old Bridge, attended Madison Central High School, Seton Hall University and Columbia University. A college basketball beat writer since 2003, Jerry owns New Jersey’s lone vote in the Associated Press Top 25, and his Hoops Haven blog has a wide following. He also teaches sports journalism as an adjunct professor at Kean University. Jerry has lived in five different New Jersey counties -- Middlesex, Monmouth, Essex, Camden and Burlington.